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Intel and Microsoft object file formats

durisinm
Novice
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A colleague of mine is considering switching from Absoft Fortran to CVF. He asked me if the merged Intel/CVF compiler will support the Intel object file format. He said that Intel's object file format is different from Microsoft's, and that he assumed that Intel's Fortran compiler supports the Intel format while every other compiler he knows of supports Microsoft's format.

Is what this guy said about the two object file formats correct? Can anyone from Intel comment about the upcoming merged Fortran compiler's support for these two formats? In what kind of situations would support for the different formats matter?

Mike
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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Intel Fortran on Windows uses the Microsoft linker (as does CVF). The object formats are the same - Intel does not have its own object format.

Steve
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durisinm
Novice
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I talked to my colleague again. He said that Borland's Delphi uses the Intel object file format, and he assumed that Intel's compilers did, too.

Mike
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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Again, there is no "Intel object file format". Intel compilers use Microsoft's Extended COFF format. Some people might be confused by Intel compilers appearing to include a special linker, xilink, but this is is a "driver" shell that helps with interprocedural optimization and then calls the MS linker.

Intel compiler objects are mixable with CVF and MS compilers (at least as far as object file format goes).

Steve
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durisinm
Novice
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Does CVF use Microsoft's extended COFF, too?

Mike
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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Yes - CVF uses the Microsoft linker and librarian and thus uses the Microsoft object format.

Steve
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somedude
Beginner
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Can you explain what is meant by "Intel Object Format" at the following link?

http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/swsup/oh86.htm

The reason I ask, is I'm looking for a linker that can handle Intel Object Format before Microsoft had their own (ie pre-1990).

Thanks,
Mike
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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I don't know, but I'll try to find out. From a bit of poking around, it appears to be something that was used with an embedded system development kit.

Steve
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